Robert May: A Holocaust Survivor’s Story

Sarah Delia | March 11, 2014

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Robert May: A Holocaust Survivor’s Story

 

Robert May in 1932 in Camberg, Germany. Photo courtesy of Ann Mollengarden.

 

On November 9, 1938, hundreds of Jewish synagogues, homes, and businesses were vandalized, ransacked or destroyed. Thousands of Jews were arrested, some even killed, by order of Adolf Hilter. That day has became known as “Kristallnacht” – often referred to as “the night of broken glass” because of the shattered glass that covered cities.

Eighty-eight year old Dr. Robert May of Birmingham was twelve at the time. He had escaped from his tiny hometown to Frankfurt to attend school and evade Hitler’s rising power. He’ll be sharing his personal accounts of surviving the Holocaust tomorrow as part of the Birmingham Public Library and The Birmingham Holocaust Education Center’s series on the Holocaust. There are sixteen known Holocaust survivors in Birmingham.

May sat down with WBHM’s Sarah Delia and reflected on his own experience during the night of Kristallnacht.

Dr. Robert May’s lecture is March 12, at noon at the Arrington Auditorium of the Linn-Henley Research Library. Every Wednesday of March there will be a free lecture on the Holocaust and the history behind it. For more information on the schedule click here.